CLEMSON – Like all freshmen football players at Clemson, Tee Higgins isn’t permitted to talk to the media until after he’s actually played in a regular-season game. But that hasn’t prevented him from getting his message across loud and clear in fall camp.

“I love his ability to go get it,” coach Dabo Swinney said. “He’s got great body control. He’s physical, and I’m very encouraged by his toughness.

“You don’t really know until you start coaching a guy how they’re going to respond to what they get on this practice field, and he hasn’t backed down a bit. He’s a tough, physical kid.”

Preseason praise of that magnitude typically means that playing time is coming sooner rather than later, and Swinney confirmed as much last week when Higgins was included in a short list of six true freshmen that he expects to play this season and avoid a redshirt.

That’s not surprising given that offensive skill-position players tend to be able to make the transition to college ball faster than the majority of linemen and defensive players, but Higgins may assume a considerable role in short order given his attributes.

Due primarily to the Tigers’ depth at the position, Higgins isn’t likely to assume a starting role from the outset a la Sammy Watkins, but there’s little doubt that he’ll be given plenty of opportunities.

After all, at 6-foot-4, 198 pounds, Higgins resembles the next Mike Williams, both in stature and ability.

Says teammate and fellow receiver Diondre Overton: “Tee is a person who is going to get the ball regardless. He’s a great jumper, a lot of basketball skills. He knows how to get the ball.”

Higgins’ assumed ownership of the ball has impressed coaches throughout fall camp.

“I love his mentality,” Swinney said. “When the ball’s in the air, he wants to go get it. He has zero fear, no fear whatsoever.

“It’s hard to overthrow him. You think he won’t get to it, and the next thing you know he’s right there and he’s got his hands on the ball.”

The top-rated player in the Tigers’ 2017 recruiting class, Higgins came to the Tigers packing quite a resume, including 68 receptions for 1,044 yards and 18 touchdowns as a senior at Oak Ridge (Tennessee) High.

But he didn’t arrive with a sense of entitlement, and that, too, has impressed his coaches and teammates.

“He’s very coachable – he wants to be coached,” Swinney said. “He has no entitlement to him; he just falls in line and goes and works every day. I love that about him. He’s a great kid.”

And while Williams may be the more obvious comparison to Higgins, Swinney sees a bit of DeAndre "Nuk" Hopkins in him as well.

“He’s got a little of that Nuk mentality,” Swinney said of Higgins, who had five receptions for 76 yards and a touchdown in the Tigers' final stadium scrimmage of fall camp last Saturday. “Nuk wasn’t very big or strong when he got here; he looked like a basketball player. But Nuk would claw your eyeballs out, too. He might have only been 180 pounds when he got here, but he would fight you for the ball. I think Tee has got that. I think Tee is going to end up being 220 pounds plus with a big catch radius.”

“Tee is one of those guys who weighs 198 pounds and looks like he’s 178 pounds, and that’s a good thing,” Scott said. “What that means is one day he’s going to be 225 pounds and look like he’s 210. That’s how those special ones are.”